Great Northern Diver Video

Here's some video of the long-staying Great Northern Diver at Salford Quays:

GND at Salford Quays Revisited

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at Salford Quays this afternoon in the company of the long-staying Great Northern Diver in Ontario Basin where the bird seems to spend the majority of its time. My previous visit to see this bird was just before Christmas when I posted here.



On arriving it didn't take me long to locate the bird which was by the white buoy in the middle of the basin, and this seems to be a place to which it often returns to sleep if not roost. It didn't seem particularly phased by my presence at any time and indeed must be used to the hoards of birding paparazzi all desperate to get a photo. Today however, I was the only one there and so for around two hours I had him all to myself.



I soon got used to its routine of preening in the middle of the basin and then diving for what seemed to be at least a minute or more before reappearing 30 metres away near the entrance to the Mariner's Canal (see Google Maps). It would then dive and swim along the northerly basin edge towards the Trafford Road end before ending up back in the middle. Today it did this routine at least three times and I found myself walking backwards and forwards around the basin trying to get the light for a decent photo without disturbing the bird. Unfortunately I didn't see it catch a fish.



On a couple of occasions it dived and swam to one end of the basin and then took me completely by surprise by flying the full length to the other end, as if it were doing training flights. I eventually left it sleeping, or at least dozing, back at the white buoy as I headed back to the car park.

Photographs weren't easy most of the time due to the ever changing light conditions and reflections and it's hard not to burn out the white breast and belly feathers while getting the detail in the bird's magnificent red eye. But I'm happy with what I got today and enjoyed just sitting down and viewing the bird through my bins as well as taking the photographs.

Great Northern Diver at Salford Quays

The last few months have seen Great Northern Divers popping up in several places around North West England including Elton Reservoir in Bury, the Marine Lakes at Southport and West Kirby, Audenshaw Reservoir, Castleshaw Reservoir near Oldham and our very own Salford Quays.  I went for the Elton bird in a very windy October and have posted on this one previously, but as the one in Salford promised closer views I decided to have a look.

Parking for free at Salford Quays is almost impossible - the Lowry Outlet Centre car park is free for the first hour but that's not long enough unless you know exactly where the bird is and it's close by. However I did manage to find a spot on the Manchester United side of the Quays in a semi-derelict pub car park called Sam Platt's which is right by the waterside facing Clipper's Quay and South Bay.

I spent 20 minutes scanning for the bird from the walkway near where I parked the car, whilst also scanning for other people looking for it. With no luck at first, I met a couple who said they had seen it briefly on the opposite side of Central Bay near Waterfront Quay, but they couldn't presently see it. After another 15 minutes of scanning and I found it in Central Bay and it seems that it had been swimming in and out of the inlets around here, perhaps sometimes even going through into Ontario Basin.

As I wasn't going to get a good photo from here, I decided to walk round to the Watersports Centre on the opposite side via the Lowry footbridge, where I was eventually rewarded with some close views and some incredible red water reflections, which I thought were very appropriate for the Christmas season.

The red colour is completely natural with no photo-editing, it's just the reflection of the Helly Hanson building's walls on the water.  The position of the sun was just right to get these shots.

Although I never got ridiculously close to the Great Northern Diver, I'm quite pleased with the way most of the shots turned out.  I even used one as my Christmas Card message on Facebook.